Summary: Mal is stuck out in the rain. Polly goes to find her. Who knew vampires had courting rituals?
Characters: Polly, Maladicta
Pairings: Polly/Mal
Rating: B
Notes: For Slodwick's 1000 word challenge.

Disclaimer: The author makes no claim to owning the rights of anything to do with Terry Pratchett or Discworld.

Of Armies, Fish and Socks
a fic by M. Stern

It was cold and wet, but thankfully the company was taking it well. They’d settled in the rather busy inn and even though some of the girls were rather nervous about the common room of the inn, most were taking it as one more adventure. Polly felt proud of them, though she knew that most of it was due to socks, real or imagined.

Even the most cautious of the girls, Anne, or ‘Nas’ in trousers, had come into the common room; the temptation of food had been too great. They’d been marching for a couple of weeks now, living on scubbo – everything on the inn menu looked tempting after that. And certainly, all of the troops were eating something, the more adventurous drinking beer as well. Polly felt a little worried about that, but as long as they were all in trousers she figured they were safe enough. And the Ins-and-Outs should be able to win a bar fight by now, or her training was worse than she thought.

Polly looked around the room again before ordering anything; she took in a sleazy looking man in the corner, with two empty beer glasses in front of him; the cautious young man at the bar – he reminded her slightly of Blouse; the barmaid who seemed less interested in serving than being molested. Polly thought about Shufti, and figured she’d learn soon enough - also she should try to write some kind of letter tonight.

The bread and cheese she ordered was quite reasonable; the tea even better. It’d been ages since she’d had a cup of tea. She ignored the jeers from the beefy man next to her, accusing her of being a sissy-man – it’s hard to take anything serious when it’s coming from someone who’s drunk from half a glass of beer.

She looked out of the window; the rain has worsened so that she could hardly see anything out there. She wondered where Maladicta was. She had decided to look for a shop that sold coffee; she wasn’t quite out yet, and Otto Chriek did try to send some regularly from Anhk-Morpork, but Maladicta had adopted the policy of better safe than sorry, and Polly supported her wholeheartedly. She kept a small bag of the cheap kind in her pack, but for emergencies only; Mal didn’t even know she had it.

The rain lessened for a few moments, then changed its mind and rained heavily again. Maladicta still hadn’t appeared and Polly couldn’t quite ignore the worried squirm of her stomach. She knew Maladicta could quite easily look after herself, but mobs weren’t an impossible occurrence and even Mal would have a problem fighting a whole mob on her own.

And if the rain got any worse, she’d have a problem finding back.

Right, Polly thought, if she isn’t back by the time the man next to me passes out, I’ll go look for her. The man swayed dangerously for a few moments; Polly held her breath, but he seemed to manage to upright himself. She breathed out, not quite relieved, and ordered another cup of tea. She looked briefly around the room, noted the bar fight that was about to start in one corner, made sure none of her troops were involved, and went back to watching the door. A few seconds passed, and then she heard the crash of furniture from the corner. The man next to her collapsed.

It wasn’t quite what she’d expected, but she’d take it. ‘Private Jacks!’ she called. One of her girls stood up and saluted.

‘Yes sir?’

‘Watch the men. I’m going to search for Corporal Maladict.’

‘Yessir.’

Polly nodded, fastened her coat; she downed the last of her tea, and made her way outside.

Within moments she was soaked. The roads were empty, as far as she could see which made sense. After a while of going in what she hoped was one direction, she didn’t encounter anything. She went left, hoping that something lay there and was surprised when she knocked straight into a young man.

‘Ins-and-Outs?’ he asked 1.

‘Yes. Sergeant Perks.’ Polly replied. The man shoved a package into her hands, collected her signature and hurried off, grumbling about weather conditions and bloody overnight delivery guarantees.

Polly walked a little further until she saw a shop; closed, but it did have a covering. She stood under there and opened the package, which was from Mr Chriek. It held the awaited coffee, and underneath that, a small box of polished wood.

Polly had a short debate with her conscience and won. She opened the box. Inside were three brightly painted egg-like objects Polly was pretty sure hadn’t come from any hens she’d ever met.

‘It came!’ a voice said near her ear; only training stopped Polly from squealing in an extremely high-pitched way. Maladicta, soaked through, stood next to her, smiling at her coffee with what Polly was sure would be bloodlust in a non-reformed vampire; it would have been disturbing if she hadn’t been used to it.

‘This came as well,’ she said, showing Mal the box. Mal flushed.

‘Yes. Err. Those aren’t actually for me.’ She looked positively embarrassed, but Polly was sure that Maladicta rarely, if ever, felt embarrassed. Then Polly’s mind caught up with her words, and stumbled.

‘Who are they for?’ she asked, and tried to make her stomach stop squirming strangely. Mal shifted from foot to foot, then looked up at Polly with a sort of nervous smile. Polly could see a little bit of one fang.

‘You, actually.’

The squirming in Polly’s stomach intensified; she could feel herself blushing, warmth spreading from her stomach.

‘Old vampire ritual, but you wouldn’t appreciate a vial of the b-word or coffee.’ Mal paused, watching Polly’s face. “They’re chocolate?’

Polly wondered what the proper response to a vampiric courting ritual was. Then she realized she didn’t care about the proper response, she knew what hers was.

Polly kissed her.

1. FedEx exists everywhere in the multiverse.